


I do this for you

by dreyars



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Illnesses, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreyars/pseuds/dreyars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Akaashi hadn’t asked, Bokuto wouldn’t have done it. He was sick, and Bokuto loved him, so what else could he have done?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I do this for you

If Akaashi hadn’t asked, Bokuto wouldn’t have done it.

If he hadn’t asked, it wouldn’t have been so easy.

Bokuto had been watching his boyfriend withering away into nothingness for so long, that it kind of only made sense to listen to his request.  Well, it hadn’t even really been that long, but it had just gotten so bad so fast that Bokuto was surprised he never saw the pain on Akaashi’s face when he hugged him too hard. 

Or heard the coughing that would last for 10 minutes at a time if Akaashi got choked up on a laugh.

Or saw the bloodstains on the bottoms of his white sleeves when Akaashi tried to cover his mouth with his hands.  He always hid them by rolling his sleeves to his elbows, but Bokuto should’ve at least noticed, even if it was only when he was trying to take those shirts off.

Bokuto had lost track of time, of how long Akaashi had been in the hospital since his last turn for the worst.  He lost track of how long it had been since the day he realized Akaashi was sick, and how long it had been since the first time Akaashi’s mother had called him to say that Akaashi wouldn’t be coming over because he had been taken to the emergency room.

Bokuto had lost track of how many hours he had spent in this chair, by this bed, watching the first and only person he had ever loved withering away in front of his very eyes. 

There had been so many tests to find out what was wrong, so many attempts to make it right.  Nothing had brought back conclusive results, and nothing had worked.

Akaashi had waited until his parents left to ask, since when he asked his parents, they refused.  He told Bokuto that he had heard what the doctors said when they thought he was sleeping.

If something didn’t work in the next week, nothing would, and he would lose more time than Bokuto could ever reclaim.

Akaashi was tired of hurting, tired of feeling empty.  He had told Bokuto he knew he was being selfish, but he didn’t care.  He knew Bokuto loved him, and he knew that he would do anything Akaashi asked.

He didn’t really have to do much of anything.  Akaashi wrote in his hand that this was what he wanted, hoping that Bokuto wouldn’t get in trouble.  Bokuto didn’t care if he went to jail for the rest of his life, because it wouldn’t matter. 

He helped Akaashi remove the medicine dripping into his arm, keeping his heart steady.  He helped Akaashi pull the small tube away from his face that was keeping his lungs filled with oxygen. He turned the heart monitors down so that the nurses wouldn’t hear when Akaashi’s heart began to slow.

Bokuto sat by Akaashi’s bedside, holding his hand and resting his chin against the bar of his bed.  Akaashi looked like he was falling asleep before his chest convulsed and he sat straight up, coughing into his hands that were no longer bound by wires.  Bokuto held a tissue to his mouth, catching the spit and blood that fell from Akaashi’s lips as he struggled for breath.  Bokuto tried to keep the liquid from staining Akaashi’s skin again, hoping to keep him fair and beautiful as he always remembered him, even in Akaashi most desperate moment.

Soon he settled again, Akaashi sliding down in bed until his head rested near Bokuto’s on the bedside bar. Bokuto didn’t dare kiss him, though he wanted to, because he feared he would steal one of Akaashi’s few final breaths.  Each breath was dragging, rattling against his throat as Akaashi slipped his eyes closed.  Bokuto half wished he would keep his eyes open so that Akaashi would know that he was here, even if it was obvious.

Akaashi didn’t have another coughing fit that night, just a few here and there as his ruined body curled in on itself and he pulled Bokuto’s right hand to his chest.  His grip was still tight, despite the weakness in the rest of his bones. 

But soon, the grip on his fingers began to wane. Loosening slightly before tightening again, as Akaashi struggled to remain.   His face relaxed with each shaking inhale, and Bokuto couldn’t tell if he was making an expression of his own as he tried to memorize the lines of Akaashi’s face.  The frown marks between his eyebrows, the faint smile lines around his mouth. The way his nose slopped and the few un-plucked hairs that strayed from his eyebrows.  Bokuto still thought he was beautiful, even now.  But he didn’t want to forget, even if this moment was one he would grow to hate for the rest of his life.

Akaashi’s shoulders slumped against his body as he tightened his grip one last time on Bokuto’s fingers.  His last breath was reminiscent of a sigh that Bokuto was oh too familiar with.  But this one wasn’t paired with a casual smile and a shake of his head that showed he amused, yet exasperated with what Bokuto had just done.

This sigh was just accompanied with silence.

Pulling his hands away was difficult, but he didn’t want to be touching him any more after what he had just done.  He wanted to turn his back before beginning to cry, so he didn’t have to see.

Akaashi wouldn’t say that Bokuto did it, because he had wanted to do it so much.  He would have found a way to do it himself if Bokuto didn’t help.  But there was no chance that Bokuto would think that he had done anything less than kill Akaashi, even if he was already dying.

\-------

Akaashi always liked rainy days the best.  They were the days that always gave him the excuse to stay in bed and forget the rest of the world.  Bokuto was never one who liked much rain, but when Akaashi let him intrude on his quiet moments of peace during a storm, he realized that he didn’t mind it much.  With his chest pressed to Akaashi’s back, Bokuto could feel every breath he took.  Akaashi hair would tickle his nose, and it always made him want to sneeze, but he never stopped inhaling the scent of his shampoo as Akaashi ran his fingers across the bare skin of Bokuto’s arm.  It always sent chills down his spine, the way Akaashi touched him so innocently.  The chills matched the cold in the air each time it rained, but because it was Akaashi, he found he didn’t mind.

It was fitting that it was raining the day of Akaashi’s funeral.  Bokuto was surprised that Akaashi’s parents let him attend, after what had happened.  But Akaashi had left a note (actually he had left more than one) that explained that Bokuto had only assisted in his death because he was tired of suffering. That Bokuto only pulled the plug at Akaashi’s demand because he knew that he would never survive without oxygen being forced into his lungs or medicine dripped into his veins to take away the pain.  Akaashi told them he felt numb, that he didn’t want to go on like his life was in a haze.

Akaashi said he wasn’t living. Only surviving. And that wasn’t how he wanted his life to be.

Bokuto stood at the back on the room, almost afraid to approach the spot where Akaashi laid.  Kuroo was with him, pressing a hand against his back to guide him around the room because he was too dumbstruck to do it himself.  He went through the motions.  He accepted and he gave condolences.  He prayed for Akaashi’s soul, and for forgiveness for himself.  He tried to make this not about himself.  He tried to make himself smaller than he was.  Yet, he still felt like all eyes were on him, screaming at him to look at what he’s done. 

Bokuto didn’t cry.

He couldn’t cry.  He didn’t deserve it.  He didn’t deserve the release that came with crying.  The raw, painful emotions spilling out of his eyes would have to be saved for later, for a day that he didn’t blame himself so much, even though he couldn’t change anything.

The only reason his hair stayed dry when they moved to the graveyard was because Kuroo held an umbrella over their heads.  His arms felt dead, and they hung loosely at his sides as he used the last of his strength to remain upright as they buried him. He hadn’t slept since the night Akaashi died, but now he was at the point of completely passing out unless he remained focused.

Bokuto had almost convinced himself that he didn’t deserve to sleep either.

Kuroo asked him over and over again why he was torturing himself.  Why he was trying to run himself into the ground over and over again, trying to hurt himself in every way possible. 

It was almost like he wanted to suffer, in a way similar to how Akaashi suffered.  That was the only way he could really atone for his actions.

At the end of the service, people began to trickle away.  Slowly, in small groups, people left, returning back to their lives and soon enough forgetting everything that made Akaashi special.  Bokuto didn’t want to leave, because this moment was the last moment he would ever be around Akaashi.  Even if he was already in the ground, if he left, Bokuto would be separated from the moment.

And he’d start to forget.

He’d forget the exact color of Akaashi’s eyes or the way his hair curled on the top of his head.

He’d forget the way his voice sounded when he was happy or sad or angry, or the way his voice sounded at all.

He’d forget the way his skin felt, and the way his hands felt folded in between Bokuto’s.

He didn’t want to forget, but maybe he was already forgetting.  The more he thought about it, the harder it was to remember.  And with each detail that he failed to recall to his distraught, sleep-deprived mind, Bokuto felt a lump grow in his throat until finally he let out a sob in the nearly empty graveyard.

Kuroo caught him by the shoulder, and pulled him against his side to hold him steady.  Kuroo dropped the umbrella to pull Bokuto along, away from the grave, and away from Akaashi’s parents who had begun crying again as Bokuto broke down.

He was lost, and he felt like he was falling.

Kuroo pushed him into his car, gently enough that Bokuto wouldn’t bump his head, but he still felt like he had just crashed as he fell into the front seat.  If he had more room, he’d pull his knees up to his chest and cry.  But all he could do was cover his mouth with his hands, trying to muffle his shameful sobbing. 

Kuroo was driving away now, taking Bokuto further and further away from the one person who meant everything to him.  He tried to tell himself that it was just his body. That Akaashi wasn’t really there.  But, every step he took, or every mile Kuroo drove took him farther from the last moment that Akaashi was alive.

He’d never see him again.  Never speak to him again. Never hold him again.

Bokuto was a mess.

But Akaashi was gone.

And he couldn’t see anything else ever mattering.

**Author's Note:**

> written in 2 parts via an ask meme on tumblr. They fit together, so I put them together, and now we're here. I hadn't written an angsty thing in a while, so please don't forgive me. Not much editing done because Im lazy and on a break, but hi guys, I'm back~


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